This was at Mud’s only gig (with the band due at Worthenbury, Big Joe Louis and His Blues Kings) so far in the UK and at the time we were also in line for a gig the day before but sadly we were unable to confirm it. It is through our friendship through Gerard Homan at Castor that we have booked Mud on this visit.

Gerard is a remarkable person whose lifelong passion has been the blues. He is one of the UK’s elder statesmen and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the genre with a massive collection of recordings in all forms, some quite rare.

He started his blues club in his local village hall ( very similar to Worthenbury, in fact he was part of the reason we moved to our village hall) in the late 60s and featured the biggest names in the scene whom he flew over from the USA to perform. Legends like Mississippi Fred McDowell, Rev Gary Davis, Dr Isiah Ross,
Lightnin’ Slim, Champion Jack Dupree, Arthur”Big Boy” Crudup, Eddie Burns, Sunnyland Slim, Little Brother Montgomery, Jimmy Dawkins, Jo-Ann Kelly .. the list is endless, all played at Castor.Due to business reasons and not having enough time, he finished his venture in 1972 but reopened four years ago.

He is now bringing over some top quality authentic African American blues performers and we have co-operated with him on a couple of these ventures. Apart from Mud, we joined forces on Louis “Gearshifter” Youngblood and Robert Belfour and we hope to combine forces on more performers in the future. I recommend you take a look at Gerard’s website http://www.shakedownblues.co.uk and if you are ever over towards the Peterborough/Stamford area, ring him to reserve a ticket for what I think is arguably the best true blues club in the UK. Paul, Ian and I have been a couple of times – it’s worth the trip.